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Symphony concert to focus on 'Light' work by Baltic composer

Croatian-born violinist Danijela Žeželj-Gualdi of UNCW's music
department will play the work of Peteris Vasks Oct. 19 with the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Richard Calmes

By Bob WorkmonStarNews Correspondent

Published: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, October 15, 2013 at 5:05 p.m.

Steven Errante and the Wilmington Symphony Orchestra bask in the warmth of the string section for this weekend's concert of music by Samuel Barber and Edvard Grieg. Violinist Danijela Žeželj-Gualdi also returns to solo with the orchestra in Peteris Vasks' luminous and contemplative violin concerto "Toward a Distant Light."

Barber's "Adagio for Strings" is practically an American anthem, exuding a sense of sublime pathos. And Grieg's Suite "From Holberg's Time" is a popular work the world over, brimming with Scandinavian gusto.

Žeželj-Gualdi, who was born in Croatia and is a part-time faculty member in the University of North Carolina Wilmington's Department of Music, said via Facebook message that she first heard the Vasks concerto on YouTube following a blog about "easy" violin concertos for students and strings. Within a few minutes, she was captured, bedazzled and intrigued.

"The first thing I did, I forwarded it to Steven and told him, 'We should do this,'" Žeželj-Gualdi said. "I am a big supporter of modern music and love to do unusual stuff. The second listening made me absolutely sure it is not an 'easy' concerto. Three major cadenzas where the soloist tries everything that is there – chromatic chord progressions, octaves in really high positions, crescendos in double stops, crazy stuff … The hardest was to decode it because (Vasks) has an unusual way of writing."

Vasks was born in Soviet-dominated Latvia in 1946, the son of a well-known Baptist preacher in that part of the world. His music is noted for its refined melodic sense and use of Latvian folk idioms balanced with emotive intensity.

"Most people today no longer possess beliefs, love and ideals," Vasks wrote on the website of Schott Music, his German publisher. "The spiritual dimension has been lost. My intention is to provide food for the soul and this is what I preach in my works."

Žeželj-Gualdi listened a lot to other violinists playing this music, especially the renowned Gidon Kremer, for whom "Toward a Distant Light" was composed. She eventually found a recording by a player named Alina Pogostkina, also from the Baltic region called home by Vasks and Kremer, whose interpretation she found more grounded than Kremer's.

"The haunting melodies and melancholic harmonies are something where I really find myself. I express that kind of sadness the best," Žeželj-Gualdi said. "The concerto is composed masterfully. Even if it is only for strings, there are colors and excitement and the soloist never gets lost in the timbre."

Žeželj-Gualdi said she thinks Vasks is writing about nature and human nature, and how they co-exist and destroy each other.

"He said himself, 'Everyone should hear this music. It should be played in hospitals and everywhere where people are suffering,'" she said. "I hope people will (come) with open mind and heart. I hope they will absorb what they need out of it. That it makes them softer, less selfish, more generous, better versions of themselves … almost like a prayer."

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